"Five years!" cried the boy in despair. "Why, by that time there will not be a place that you have not searched. There will be nothing left to discover, and--" (a sneeze), "there's that dust again."

"You miserable young ignoramus! what are you talking about?" cried the naturalist. "Why, if a man could live to be a hundred, and have a hundred lives, he would not achieve to a hundredth part of what there is to be discovered in this grand--this glorious world."

He stood up with one hand resting on the table, and began to gesticulate with the other.

"Why, my dear boy, before I was your age I had begun to take an active interest in natural history, and for considerably over twenty years now I have been hard at work, with my eyes gradually opening to the wonders on every hand, till I begin now to feel sorrow and delight at how little I know and how much there is yet to learn."